According to me, grenades are very bad

This week I did current events with all classes and had them write and then speak about one of two current events. I told them about Jacob Zuma revealing his HIV status and then about the recent grenades in Kigali that are related to the upcoming elections. What followed was an incredibly intelligent discussion in all 6 English classes.  I love “debate” because they have been taught to open with “According to me……”

I was blown away by my Senior 6MCB class (They are usually a huge pain in the ass). They had original theories and were able to come up with great ideas on the spot. One kid said that he read it was actually the government doing it, to make the opposition look bad (Saying this is like telling the CIA you want to kill Barack Obama but I promised everything they said would stay in the classroom). Another boy thought it was an African continent problem and that people travelled from place to place doing this during African elections.  Someone thought it was Ex-FAR members who escaped after Kagame came to power (a fairly sound theory).

AND THEN….another boy brought up Freedom versus Peace and that in Rwanda they have peace but not a lot of freedom. My friends and I have actually spent a fair amount of time discussing this exact issue. 15 years after a genocide, the government has traded freedom of speech/press for peace. I was so amazed to hear these free thinking ideas coming from children who have spent their 12 years of schooling rote memorizing.  They also brought up re-traumatizing genocide survivors which I thought was pretty astute and sensitive. Then, they asked me what I thought….

I said I agreed, that the government was very focused on peace over freedom, probably because they were still scared from the civil war (Emmanuel, interrupted me and said “genocide”). In America you can say whatever you want against the president or government with no fear of jail so people are less inclined to use violence to make their views known. In Rwanda, people cannot speak out, so they are using violence as a way of showing they are unhappy. But, nonetheless I think violence is wrong and there are many examples of people communicating their views in a repressed society without violence (Mandela, Gandhi).  I finished by saying I thought that someday Rwanda could have the same freedom of speech/press as the USA but that it would take time for people to feel that it was not a threat to peace.

Side note- I am very safe. The U.S. embassy has a close watch on all the expats, knows where we are in the Country and sends us emails whenever there is an incident. The opposition is not very well organized and the attacks have all been after dark on a weekend in Kigali so we abide by a curfew. Worldteach is super on the ball about this and working with Peace Corps. Remember (this statement is not PC) but no one wants the U.S. news full of pictures of cute young Americans who were working for the US government abroad. I am in way more danger debating 100 kids on Saturday about Homosexuality.